With the third week of winter quarter underway at the University of California San Diego, COVID-19 case rates have fallen dramatically since classes resumed on Jan. 4. The current test positivity rate on campus has reduced to pre-break levels of less than 1%.
There’s no doubt 2020 has been a year unlike any other, forcing each of us to rethink how and, often, why we do things. Yet in the face of so much disruption and uncertainty, the UC San Diego community forged ahead and continued to do what we do best—innovate and inspire change.
In September 2020, UC San Diego students and employees became the first participants of the CA Notify smartphone tool, which works behind-the-scenes to automate exposure notification among people who have been in close proximity of each other, augmenting traditional contact tracing.
Despite the spikes of COVID-19 cases in California, UC San Diego has successfully curtailed outbreaks through a combination of strategic public health interventions driven by the university’s Return to Learn program.
UC San Diego’s nationally recognized, evidence-based Return to Learn program employs a comprehensive suite of education, monitoring, testing, intervention and notification tools that no other university is using. And the program continues to expand.
A team fielded for the first time by SDSC and UC San Diego achieved 4th place overall out of 19 teams in the Student Cluster Competition, held during the annual Supercomputing Conference (SC20).
How did use of massive tents to enable students to learn outdoors take shape, what technology is available and which classes will be taught outdoors? To answer these and other questions, we spoke with Carlos Jensen, associate vice chancellor of Education Innovation at UC San Diego.
As part of the Return to Learn program, we invited students to submit their questions about how to safely socialize on campus, what happens if residential students must travel off-campus for an extended period, outdoor recreation classes offered, study spaces available and more.
As part of the Return to Learn program, UC San Diego’s campus privacy officer, Pegah Parsi addresses questions from students, faculty and staff about how student and employee health records are protected, what information is stored, who is informed of test results and more.